KIRBY

Michael Justin Kirby English 103, Section 2 Portfolio 3 Final Draft

Seeing God: A Journey to The Antipodes of The Mind

For millennia, humans have searched for a greater power beyond themselves. This search for God has sparked countless religions and ideals that have shaped our cultures, societies and entire world. Present within the histories of many religions (such as? cite a few specifics) are mysterious substances that were discovered to have powerful mind-altering effects when ingested. These substances are believed to transcend their user's consciousness beyond the waking state to an alternate reality beyond. This alternate reality is subsequently believed to be the realm of God; where the soul, heaven, love, peace, and joy all originate. These substances are today commonly referred to as entheogens, which literally means "God inside us." The OED defines the term as a psychoactive substance used in a religious ritual or to bring about a religious experience. Today, laws around the world have outlawed the use of most of these substances which has made their availability much more scarce and taboo. In accordance with this, the most popular religions of Europe and North America have completely stopped their use of entheogens; however, these substances are still used by select Native American tribes (which ones?) and other tribal religious cultures around the globe.

Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel, __Brave New World__ presents a future world in which the ultimate efficient society has been created. Every aspect of society as we know it today has evolved. Business, education, reproduction, and even religion have all reached the point of extreme efficacy. Huxley names this society the World State, and contrasts the ideals and philosophies of the World State with that of its polar opposite: a Native American civilization and culture that Huxley names the Savage World. Despite their vastly different outlooks on life regarding business, education, and reproduction; these two societies share something: their citizens each ingest mysterious substances to achieve an alternate state of human consciousness in an attempt to connect with God. (it's not clear that the World State believes in a separate god) __Brave New World__ will serve as a foundation as we explore the mystery of entheogens; together with research from leading names in the study of these substances, this wiki will attempt to discover the true effects of entheogens, and why they were so essential to Huxley both in his life and in his novel __Brave New World__.

In __Brave New World__, the World State has grown and evolved beyond the use or need for any specific religion, however they have not transcended the need for God. They connect with god (be more specific: the Solidarity Service has them joining a [|"Greater Being, Social Friend"] through the use of an entheogen called soma, which is described in the novel as having "All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol, none of the defects." This statement alone **shows that soma is used by the World State** for the same reasons as practicing Christianity or using alcohol, that is **to transcend normal waking consciousness.** (no, in the World State, transcendent experiences would threaten stability - soma is an instrument of control, not epiphany) Christianity accomplishes this feat through prayer and worship of Jesus just as the practice of other religions accomplishes this feat through prayer and worship of their deities. Included in Huston Smith's 2000 study titled __Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals__ is an account by Dr. R. M. Bucke in which he recounts a personal religious experience during a worship session in his 1923 work __Cosmic Consciousness__: "Suddenly I burst into a vast, new, indescribably wonderful universe. Although I am writing this over a year later, the thrill of the surprise and amazement, the awesomeness of the revelation, the engulfment in an overwhelming feeling-wave of gratitude and blessed wonderment, are as fresh, and the memory of the experience is as vivid, as if it had happened five minutes ago."

Dr. Bucke's description is undoubtedly an account of transcendence from the normal human waking state of consciousness. Alcohol also accomplishes a transcendence from the normal human waking state of consciousness, to the drunken state of consciousness, as anyone who has ingested enough of it can attest. The famous Benjamin Franklin quote immediately comes to mind when thinking about the euphoric effects of alcohol, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Alcohol does this through chemical reactions in the brain, likewise to entheogenic substances. Also attestable by anyone who has ingested enough alcohol are the defects of this substance briefly referred to in __Brave New World__. Nausea, headaches, and hangovers, are all examples of these defects that soma is without. Equally present, but certainly harder to specify are the defects of Christianity. Perhaps the biggest defect of Chrisianity, likewise with most religions, is the alienation of those who do not practice that said religion. **What soma accomplishes** (why not cite description from text?) for the citizens of the World State in __Brave New World__ is chemically inducing the euphoric feelings similar to those of an alcohol "buzz" and consciousness transcendence similar to what is described in Dr. Bucke's religious experience while eliminating the unwanted and distasteful side-effects.

Contrasting the use of soma by the citizens of the World State in __Brave New World__ is the use of mescaline by the savages of the Savage World. The savages use the extract of the peyote cactus to transcend the limitations of the normal human waking state consciousness to better connect with God during a religious worship experience. (here you are correct, Savages use it for initiation & enlightenment) On the surface, the reasons for the use of mescaline by the Savage World differs from the use of soma by the World State. The savages use mescaline in combination with spiritual worship sessions while the World State citizens seem to use soma simply to escape troubles that they may encounter in everyday life. This apparent difference sparks a deep philosophical question regarding psychoactive substances: should their use be allowed simply for the mind-altering effects that the user experiences or should they only be allowed for the specific purpose of creating God within and having a religious experience? Perhaps these two reasons for use are actually one in the same, perhaps as they each accomplish the task of transcending normal human waking consciousness, they are creating God within.

What exactly does it mean to transcend normal human waking consciousness? (good development here ) Another work by Aldous Huxley released in 1956, titled __Heaven and Hell__, provides an eloquent and lucid answer to this question. Huxley explains the transcendence in terms of European discovery of the new lands in the Americas and compares the human mind and consciousness to that of a global map. Huxley writes, "A man consists of what I may call an Old World of personal consciousness and, beyond a dividing sea, a series of New Worlds - the not too distant Virginias and Carolinas of the personal subconscious and the vegetative soul; the Far West of the collective unconscious, withg its flora of symbols, its tribes of aboriginal archetypes; and, across another, vaster ocean, at the antipodes of everyday consciousness, the world of Visionary Experience." It is this "world of Visionary Experience" that Dr. Bucke encountered during his account of a religious experience discussed earlier, and it is this same world that the citizens of the World State and the savages of the Savage World in __Brave New World__ encounter when they ingest soma and mecaline, respectively.

Huxley goes on the write in __Heaven and Hell__ about two methods for transporting one's essence from the realm of everyday consciousness to the antipodes of the mind. This first is the act of hypnosis, which transports hypnotic subjects, in the trance state, to alternate realms of consciousness in the minds antipodes. The second method, and the one that __Heaven and Hell__ aims at exploring, is by means of ingesting certain chemicals, certain entheogenic substances. The main two that Huxley studies are mescaline and lysergic acid (LSD), but the list does not end there; psilocybine, DMT, and cannabis are further examples of widely used entheogens. Again included in Huston Smith's __Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals__ is an anonymous account of a LSD experience from the article //The Issue of the Conscious-Expanding Drugs// published in __Main Currents in Modern Thought__ in 1963. It reads: "All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire ... the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life ... I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world ... is what we call love."

This account of a psychedelic experience rings eerily similar to Dr. Bucke's account of his religious experience. The similarities are not a mere coincidence; the oldest known religious manuscript called the Rig-Veda contains within it a myriad of hymns praising one of the divinities in the religion not ironically named Soma. Soma in this religion is the only plant known to be deified in the history of human cultures and passages within the Rig-Veda describe fascinating visionary and religious experiences that overcame those who ingested the Soma. The true identity of this plant was never known and it was not until R. Gordon Wasson dedicated over a decade of his life to discovering its true identity that the mystery was revealed. In Wasson's 1968 work, __Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality__, he identifies Soma as //Amanita Muscaria//, a mushroom containing the hallucinogenic chemical psilocybine. Wasson furthermore goes on the speculate that perhaps the use of Soma by the Aryans was in fact the inspiration for writing the Rid-Veda and that the writings within were actually the first recorded psychedelic experiences, or journeys by humans to the antipodes of the mind as Huxley would describe it. Could it be that this is was what initially sparked religious thought?



"Turn off your mind, relax and float down the stream..." --John Lennon


 * Works Cited:**

Huxley, Aldous. __Brave New World__. (1932) Cutchogue, New York: Buccaneer Book, Inc. 1946.

Huxley, Aldous. __Heaven and Hell__. (1956) New York: Perennial Library. Harper & Row, Publishers. 1971.

Wasson, R. Gordon. __Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality__. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1968.

Smith, Huston. __Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals__. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. 2000.

Bucke, Richard Maurice. __Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind__. (1901) New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. 1923.

Anonymous. //The Issue of the Conscious-Expanding Drugs.// __Main Currents in Modern Thought__. 20, I. (September-October 1963): 10-11.


 * Works Consulted:**

Huxley, Aldous. __The Doors of Perception__. (1954) New York: Harper Collins. 1956.

James, William. __The Varieties of the Religious Experience__. New York: Modern Library. 1902.

Wasson, R. Gordon [et. al]. __Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion__. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 1986.

Furst, Peter T. __Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens__. New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc. 1972.

DuBois, Thomas A. __An Introduction to Shamanism__. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2009.

Dass, Baba Ram. __Be Here Now__. San Cristobal, NM: The Lama Foundation. 1971.


 * Annotated bibliography:**

Huxley, Aldous. __Heaven and Hell__. New York: Perennial Library. Harper & Row, Publishers. 1971. 1-91.

//Good source with great personal insight, no index or bibliography however.//

Hallucinogenic chemicals transport their user's mental focus from the areas of normal mental function to the antipodes of the mind.

Smith, Huston. __Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals__. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. 2000.

//Excellent Source with great uses of personal experience based on scientific research with the use of entheogens.//

Smith analyzes the uses of entheogenic plants throughout history and today.

Wasson, R. Gordon. __Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality__. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 1968.

//Informative Source with great accounts from a variety of experts in the entheogen field.//

Wasson, along with a few others, is credited as having coined the term entheogen as the proper description of hallucinogenic substances.


 * Excepts from Brave New World regarding the entheogens soma (World State) and mescaline (Savage World):**

Chapter 3

"There was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality."

"But they used to take morphia and cocaine."

"Glum, Marx, glum." The clap on the shoulder made him start, look up. It was that brute Henry Foster. "What you need is a gramme of //soma//."

"All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."

-//These passages give good insight into the use of soma in the world state. They say that they used to take morphine and cocaine, but now there is soma, which has all the advantages of christianity and alcohol; none of the defects. The statement that soma provides all the advantages of Christianity immediately brings the word entheogen to mind. Soma creates religion and god within, eliminating the need to practice any specific religion. Also, being that soma provides all the advantages of alcohol must mean that it intoxicates the user, helping give a feeling of euphoria. Finally, stating that soma provides all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol with none of the defects says to me that soma has been created to give the user a divine experience within, a feeling of euphoria (buzz), and eliminate all of the negative side effects of what used to be used to achieve these states; that is, wars, persecution, and separation due to religious affiliation, and hangovers and adverse health effects due to alcohol, morphine, and cocaine use.//

Chapter 4

Bernard started and looked around. The chubby red face of Benito Hoover was beaming down at him–beaming with manifest cordiality. Benito was notoriously good-natured. People said of him that he could have got through life without ever touching //soma//. The malice and bad tempers from which other people had to take holidays never afflicted him. Reality for Benito was always sunny. "Pneumatic too. And how!" Then, in another tone: "But, I say," he went on, "you do look glum! What you need is a gramme of //soma//." Diving into his right-hand trouser-pocket, Benito produced a phial. "One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy … But, I say!" Bernard had suddenly turned and rushed away. Benito stared after him. "What can be the matter with the fellow?" he wondered, and, shaking his head, decided that the story about the alcohol having been put into the poor chap's blood-surrogate must be true. "Touched his brain, I suppose." He put away the //soma// bottle, and taking out a packet of sex-hormone chewing-gum, stuffed a plug into his cheek and walked slowly away towards the hangars, ruminating. Henry Foster had had his machine wheeled out of its lock-up and, when Lenina arrived, was already seated in the cockpit, waiting.

//-The statement regarding Benito that he could have got through life without ever touching soma speaks to me about the dependency on soma that most of the world state have.//

Chapter 5

Swallowing half an hour before closing time, that second dose of //soma// had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds. Bottled, they crossed the street; bottled, they took the lift up to Henry's room on the twenty-eighth floor. And yet, bottled as she was, and in spite of that second gramme of //soma//, Lenina did not forget to take all the contraceptive precautions prescribed by the regulations. Years of intensive hypnopædia and, from twelve to seventeen, Malthusian drill three times a week had made the taking of these precautions almost as automatic and inevitable as blinking.

Again twelve stanzas. By this time the //soma// had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted. When Morgana Rothschild turned and beamed at him, he did his best to beam back. But the eyebrow, that black two-in-one–alas, it was still there; he couldn't ignore it, couldn't, however hard he tried. The melting hadn't gone far enough. Perhaps if he had been sitting between Fifi and Joanna … For the third time the loving cup went round; "I drink to the imminence of His Coming," said Morgana Rothschild, whose turn it happened to be to initiate the circular rite. Her tone was loud, exultant. She drank and passed the cup to Bernard. "I drink to the imminence of His Coming," he repeated, with a sincere attempt to feel that the coming was imminent; but the eyebrow continued to haunt him, and the Coming, so far as he was concerned, was horribly remote. He drank and handed the cup to Clara Deterding. "It'll be a failure again," he said to himself. "I know it will." But he went on doing his best to beam.

-

Chapter 6

"I don't understand anything," she said with decision, determined to preserve her incomprehension intact. "Nothing. Least of all," she continued in another tone "why you don't take //soma// when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You'd forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you'd be jolly. //So// jolly," she repeated and smiled, for all the puzzled anxiety in her eyes, with what was meant to be an inviting and voluptuous cajolery.

Chapter 7

"Oh, my dear, my dear." The torrent of words flowed sobbingly. "If you knew how glad–after all these years! A civilized face. Yes, and civilized clothes. Because I thought I should never see a piece of real acetate silk again." She fingered the sleeve of Lenina's shirt. The nails were black. "And those adorable viscose velveteen shorts! Do you know, dear, I've still got my old clothes, the ones I came in, put away in a box. I'll show them you afterwards. Though, of course, the acetate has all gone into holes. But such a lovely white bandolier–though I must say your green morocco is even lovelier. Not that it did //me// much good, that bandolier." Her tears began to flow again. "I suppose John told you. What I had to suffer–and not a gramme of //soma// to be had. Only a drink of //mescal// every now and then, when Popé used to bring it. Popé is a boy I used to know. But it makes you feel so bad afterwards. the //mescal// does, and you're sick with the //peyotl//; besides it always made that awful feeling of being ashamed much worse the next day. And I was so ashamed. Just think of it: me, a Beta–having a baby: put yourself in my place." (The mere suggestion made Lenina shudder.) "Though it wasn't my fault, I swear; because I still don't know how it happened, seeing that I did all the Malthusian Drill–you know, by numbers, One, two, three, four, always, I swear it; but all the same it happened, and of course there wasn't anything like an Abortion Centre here. Is it still down in Chelsea, by the way?" she asked. Lenina nodded. "And still floodlighted on Tuesdays and Fridays?" Lenina nodded again. "That lovely pink glass tower!" Poor Linda lifted her face and with closed eyes ecstatically contemplated the bright remembered image. "And the river at night," she whispered. Great tears oozed slowly out from behind her tight-shut eyelids. "And flying back in the evening from Stoke Poges. And then a hot bath and vibro-vacuum massage … But there."

Chapter 8

Popé used to come often. He said the stuff in the gourd was called //mescal//; but Linda said it ought to be called //soma//; only it made you feel ill afterwards.

Chapter 9

LENINA felt herself entitled, after this day of queerness and horror, to a complete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of //soma//, lay down on her bed, and within ten minutes had embarked for lunar eternity. It would be eighteen hours at the least before she was in time again.

Chapter 11

The return to civilization was for her the return to //soma//, was the possibility of lying in bed and taking holiday after holiday, without ever having to come back to a headache or a fit of vomiting, without ever being made to feel as you always felt after //peyotl//, as though you'd done something so shamefully anti-social that you could never hold up your head again. //Soma// played none of these unpleasant tricks. The holiday it gave was perfect and, if the morning after was disagreeable, it was so, not intrinsically, but only by comparison with the joys of the holiday. The remedy was to make the holiday continuous. Greedily she clamoured for ever larger, ever more frequent doses. Dr. Shaw at first demurred; then let her have what she wanted. She took as much as twenty grammes a day.

"//Soma// may make you lose a few years in time," the doctor went on. "But think of the enormous, immeasurable durations it can give you out of time. Every //soma//-holiday is a bit of what our ancestors used to call eternity."

Thenceforward she remained in her little room on the thirty-seventh floor of Bernard's apartment house, in bed, with the radio and television always on, and the patchouli tap just dripping, and the //soma// tablets within reach of her hand–there she remained; and yet wasn't there at all, was all the time away, infinitely far away, on holiday; on holiday in some other world, where the music of the radio was a labyrinth of sonorous colours, a sliding, palpitating labyrinth, that led (by what beautifully inevitable windings) to a bright centre of absolute conviction; where the dancing images of the television box were the performers in some indescribably delicious all-singing feely; where the dripping patchouli was more than scent–was the sun, was a million saxophones, was Popé making love, only much more so, incomparably more, and without end.

//''Hug me till you drug me, honey;// //Kiss me till I'm in a coma;// //Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny;// //Love's as good as// soma//."//


 * Brainstorming & notes (thesis thoughts):**

-Use of drugs in both the world state (Soma) and in the savage world (Mescaline) -People in the world state use soma regularly, some daily just to get by. Savages use mescaline for religious purposes. -Entheogens: Chemicals (drugs) used to "create god within" -Perhaps Huxley was attempting to show the evolution of religion, by comparing the Savage civilization to the World State. -The savages use peyote while engaging in a religious quest in which they are worshiping God to help transcend the limitations of their human consciousness and connect with God -Citizens of the World State use soma to help them cope with life, not while engaging in a religious quest and worshiping God; but still perhaps to in fact transcend the limitations of their human consciousness to connect with God. -yogi and maharaja-ji don't receive same effects from hallucinogens as others do

[| Wikipedia page]

OED definition:

A psychoactive substance which is used in a religious ritual or to bring about a spiritual experience, typically a plant or fungal extract; (more widely) any hallucinogenic drug.